


Your Heart on the Line

by Anonymous



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Bending (Avatar), Alternate Universe - Professors, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27714295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Zuko Sozin is a visiting professor and a nationally acclaimed writer. Sokka is the newest physics professor and frankly surprised the department is even letting him teach.When Sokka's class gets cancelled for an English course, he has to go check it out.He might understand why his students abandoned him.AKAThe one where Zuko mistakes Sokka for a student
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 116
Collections: Anonymous





	Your Heart on the Line

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [An Ideal Grace](https://archiveofourown.org/works/287077) by [afrocurl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl), [nekosmuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekosmuse/pseuds/nekosmuse). 



> The title comes from "Little Lion Man" and this fic is inspired by afrocurl and nekosmuse's fic "An Ideal Grace".

The night before the start of the semester, Sokka gets the email. The one he feared was coming, but he hoped never came down to it. 

His class is cancelled. 

Shit. 

Sokka groans and rubs his eyes. As a student, having a class cancelled would’ve stressed him out. It happened, once, with an 8 a.m. math lecture. He spent the next two days desperately searching for another course to be in and only ended up getting a spot in the same version of the course running later in the day because he paid some kid thirty bucks and offered to help tutor him the next semester. 

But now? As the professor? 

Sokka’s gut hurts. Is this how they fire him? Slowly cut all his classes? Will he just come into his office one day and find everything in boxes and his lab shut down?

 _Sokka,_ Katara texts him back, _don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic?_

Sokka stares at his phone screen. _No. I hope you and Aang have space to support me. Forever._

Not ten seconds later, his phone starts to ring. For a split second, Sokka debates declining the call. But he’s also pretty sure that Katara would kill him if he did. Or at least refuse to put him up in the spare bedroom of her and Aang’s duplex. 

So Sokka hits the green button and flops back on his bed. “Hello?”

“Sokka.” Katara isn’t in the mood to deal with his breakdowns. “Do you know how many times one of my classes has been cancelled? It’s pretty much a tradition, at this point. And none of those profs lost their job.”

Sokka sighs, rolls over, and hugs his pillow into his chest. He doubts that very many other profs have to deal with the fact that their _little sisters_ go to the same school that they teach at. But there Katara is, Mastering in Indigenous Studies. 

She stops by Sokka’s office every other day and leaches on his stock of M&Ms. And, if she happens to catch Sokka while he’s actually in his office, she usually ropes him into buying her a coffee, too.

“You might have a point,” Sokka admits, defeated. 

“Classes get cancelled all the time. That’s part of being a prof.”

“Yeah,” Sokka pouts, “but it’s never been my class before.”

“Sokka. It’s a 9 a.m. physics class. Most people like sleeping more than making their brains bleed.”

“I do not make brains bleed.”

“No.” Katara pauses. “But that’s not for a lack of trying.”

* * *

Sokka does not sulk. He never has and he never will. He swears by that fact. 

He is, though, getting dangerously close to brooding. After that, it’s a full downward cycle until he’s in full-on sulking mode, and that just won’t do. 

So instead of sitting around his office on Monday morning, lamenting his class that never came to be, Sokka grabs his bag and heads out for a walk. It never fails to clear his mind, at the very least, even if it isn’t the most productive thing he could be doing. But those emails will still be there when he’s back. 

On his way out from his office on the fifth floor, Sokka makes a poor decision: he doesn’t press the ground floor button in the elevator. Instead, he hits the little _1_ . Where his class _should_ have been held. He’ll just walk past it. Only once. 

But when Sokka starts down the hallway, it isn’t empty, like he expected that it would be. A dozen or so students mill around in the door. Judging by the buzz, there are more inside the room. 

_What?_ He can’t think of any other class that would be running in there right now. 

And as he gets closer, Sokka starts to notice there’s something else wrong, too. 

There’s no way these students are science students. There’s no way to put it nicely: they’re all too _cool_. It creates a sort of dissonance—all these people dressed as if they came straight from the 70s, 80s, and 90s lounging next to the sleek glass panels of the railing and sitting on the hard angled benches. 

One girl has bubble-gum pink hair. She’s talking to another student clad in dark overalls, a tattoo of a spiked rose curling up their arm and a ring through their lip. In general, there are far too many pairs of Doc Martens and Fjallraven backpacks for these to be science students.

Not that science students are uncool! Sokka will die on that hill. And besides, he thinks that science and arts students need to put aside their differences to focus on the real problem: the business students. 

But he’s getting away from where his thoughts should be. These are clearly arts students, even if this is the physics and chemistry building. 

“What course is this?” Sokka asks the bubble-gum haired girl. 

She looks him up and down, clearly judging his plain sweater and jeans combo. “English 202,” she finally says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 

Sokka huffs. They put an English class in his old room? Not that it was ever technically _his_ , but it still feels like rubbing salt in the open wound. 

When he gets closer to the door, he realizes there’s a room change notice posted on the door. 

_PHYS 216—Intermediate Experimental Physics—CANCELLED_

Which, ouch, okay. It might be true but it still hurts. They could’ve at least added _due to no fault of the instructor._

But underneath it is what really catches Sokka’s interest. The girl wasn’t lying. _ENGL 202—Post-Colonial Literature_ reads the sign. 

Sokka peaks inside. Sure enough, the seats are mostly filled. All fifty of them. Which is probably why it was moved here, Sokka guesses. It’s been a while since he set foot in the humanities building, but he’s pretty sure the only options in that old building are classrooms that hold thirty people, maximum, or the 200 person lecture hall. 

Still. Sokka mentally swears. He knows that they didn’t cancel his lecture for this one—that’s not at all how it works—but the sting is still there. Students would rather go to some English course at 9 than his Physics lecture. And he’d worked so hard on the syllabus too. They were even gonna watch _Interstellar_ later in the semester. 

But now Sokka has to watch the rest of the students enter the room while he stands there in the hall with nothing to do. Well, he could answer emails. There are always emails to answer. 

He should enjoy the day, he thinks. It’s a nice fall morning—sun filters in through the glass wall that is the South side of this building. A few of the trees on campus have started to yellow, but mostly they’re still green. He should savour it while he can. In another month, the place will be all dead trees. A month after that and he’ll be trudging through a foot of snow to get from building to building. 

He shoves his hands in his pockets and heads down to the stairwell at the end of the hallway. 

With a little too much of his muscle, he shoves the door open. Which really isn’t fair, but Sokka needs some way to let off steam. The metal door swings open in a wide arc. 

And slams into the face of the man on the other side. 

Books from his arms clatter on the floor. The man winces and his hands fly to his face. 

“Ow! Fuck.” He bends forward and all Sokka sees is a head of black hair. 

And a drop of blood drips down to the floor. 

_Shit._ “Oh my god!” Sokka reaches out to help the man, but he’s honestly not sure what he could do. 

“What the hell were you thinking?” The man’s voice is raspy and low. He’s still doubled over—Sokka can’t make out his face. 

“I didn’t think there’d be anyone on the other side!” Sokka really didn’t. The physics building is usually dead before eleven. 

“Uh, look,” Sokka continues. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a small pack of Kleenex that Gran Gran had given him the last time he’d been over for dinner. “Here.” He thrusts them at the stranger and bends down, gathering the books up from the ground. One even seemed to tumble down the first flight of stairs. 

Sokka goes to fetch it. It’s the least he can do. A few of the pages are bent, all curled in on themselves. He can’t help feeling a little bad about that. 

But when he picks it up, he feels less bad. 

It’s _Heart of Darkness._

Sokka keeps his sigh internal. He places the book on the stack with the others—which seem more tasteful, he will admit. Something called _Wide Sargasso Sea,_ another one Sokka’s pretty sure he’s seen on display in Indigo called _An Ocean of Minutes_ , along with _Tarzan_ and _One Hundred Years of Solitude_. 

Sokka comes up behind the man, who looks like he’s blotting his nose with a tissue. “Here,” Sokka says, holding out the books. “I’m so sorry.”

The man turns. 

_Oh._

Sokka blinks. This was really the last thing he expected. The man is drop-dead gorgeous. His long black hair shines in the sun like fine silk. The half of it that’s he pulled back in a bun does wonders to show off his jawline. His eyes, too, are like pools of liquid gold. 

Except around one of them is a hardened scar. 

As far as Sokka can tell, it looks old. At least, he thinks it is. It’s definitely not new, at any rate. It narrows his one eye to a permanent stare and runs back into his hairline. It even curls around his ear on that side of his head. 

The man grabs the books from Sokka’s hands. “Thanks,” he says curtly.

And Sokka realizes he was staring. Again, he mentally swears. Can’t he do anything right today? 

The man glares at Sokka. “Do you mind?” he says, gesturing to the door which Sokka is currently standing in front of. “I’ve got to get to my class.”

“Oh shit. Yeah. Yeah.” Sokka sidesteps out of the way. “And for what it’s worth, I can even tell that your nose was bleeding.”

The man raises his eyebrow at Sokka. “Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want my students thinking I got into a fight before the lecture.”

In Sokka’s mind, the pieces snap together slowly. But they do fit together. 

“You’re the English prof.”

He nods. “Zuko Sozin. Nice to meet you.”

 _Oh._ Sokka could slap himself. Zuko Sozin—the big deal writer from Toronto. No wonder the class is so full—he’s the literary scene’s latest darling. Hell, Katara even gave Sokka his poetry collection last Christmas. Somewhere back in the summer, there _had_ been news that he was going to be a visiting scholar for the year, but Sokka hadn’t paid much attention. The university was a big place, after all. 

But at least it makes sense why the class was so full. If Sokka was still a student, he would’ve jumped at the chance.

Sokka frowns. “My physics class was cancelled because of you.” Which, okay, he knows it’s not totally fair. Or even true. 

But it makes sense. On so many levels. Not only is Zuko _the_ hottest poet right not—everyone’s been calling him the next Rupo Kaur—but he’s just plain hot. 

Like seriously, unfairly gorgeous. His button-up shirt is a deep red, made of some fine fabric that Sokka could never afford. More than that, it highlights how trim and lean he is. 

“Your class is cancelled because of me?” He has the decency to look like he feels bad about it, too. 

Sokka could die on the spot. He brushes the back of his neck. “I mean, in a roundabout sort of way…”

“What are you doing instead?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” 

Sokka shrugs. 

“You didn’t pick up another course?”

 _And what, design a whole course overnight and hope students magically registered?_ Sokka cuts him some slack, though. As far as he knows, Zuko hasn’t taught much—he’s probably still learning the ropes in terms of how things work. “It was a little late for that,” Sokka explains gently. 

Zuko looks at him for a moment. “Look,” he says after a beat, “why don’t you come to my lecture?”

Okay. Sokka certainly didn’t expect that. “Are there even any seats?”

“Physically, there should be. On the registrar, that’s another story. But come today, at the very least. If you like it enough to stay, I’m sure I can figure out how to make it work.”

Sokka stares at him for a moment. If Zuko was giving a guest lecture, he wouldn’t hesitate to show up. _Fuck it._ Sokka shrugs. “Why not?”

* * *

In the lecture hall, Sokka slides into one of the very few empty seats near the back. It’s strange to see someone else up there instead of him. But he’ll take it. 

"Sokka?" 

Sokka turns. Sitting behind him is Alex, one of his students from last semester. 

A third-year physics major. In a second-year English class. "Alex?" She _was_ on his list for his class that had been cancelled. "You abandoned me for this?" he asks, mock hurt. Maybe Zuko's course is why his got cancelled. Bunch of traitors. All of them. 

She shrugs. "Your class runs again next semester. This is a sort of one-time deal."

Before Sokka can shoot a comeback at her, Zuko clears his throat. 

“Alright,” Zuko says, clapping his hands together. 

The lecture hall buzzes with the static of excitement. The morning sun streams through the window on the side wall. The soft light catches in Zuko’s soft hair, catches in the kaleidoscopes that are his eyes. 

Sokka’s heart pounds in his chest. At least it’s acceptable to stare. 

“Welcome to English 202. Post-Colonial literature. Are you ready to begin?”


End file.
